Promised
by QueenStrata
Summary: And here they are in the next life, another bittersweet history *just like they promised*. Axel/Roxas.


_A/N: THERE IS REALLY LONG NOTE AT THE BOTTOM. All I really have to say up here is: "oh my god, I'm so sorry about this story" and you'll see why if you get through it. So um. Try to enjoy it!_

_Edit: Man, my layout now is all kinds of fucked up. D: Um. If you've read this before and are rereading it, I've changed the layout a bit because they took away my dashes and triple-spacing between paragraphs apparently isn't allowed. Sigh. So the liney things have changed places, and now they're not where I want them to be, and I think it looks silly. Whatever. Don't mind all the italics up here, it's better than bolding it.  
_

_Warnings: Uh…maybe just one for present tense? Hey, almost all the writers I know hate it with a passion. Hell, I hate it with a passion. Man, this is a really long (and babbly) warning._

_Disclaimer: Squaresoft and Disney and not me and no money_

_Summary: And here they are in the next life, another bittersweet history (just like they promised). AkuRoku._

_Dedication: To my dear friend Curly, who boughted me the awesomest sweatshirt EVAR. Seriously, woman, you fucking rock._

* * *

**Promised**

This is how Roxas meets him: walking into his house after a long day at school, discussing pre-trigonometry homework with his friends and stopping short at the entrance to the kitchen where he hears his brother talking with an unfamiliar voice. And it isn't the impossibly red hair or the bright green eyes or the tattoos on the man's face that catches his attention, it's the simple phrase emblazoned on the front of the sweatshirt, "Got it memorized?" in fire-orange letters. It feels important, as if there's something he _should_ have remembered but had long forgotten or had never known to begin with. And then there's a sharp poke in his back and the moment passes, he tears his eyes away from the stranger and moves to the fridge in search of soda, nods to his brother in greeting as he walks back out. Not a word is said between the two of them, Roxas doesn't even look him in the eye, but there's already something there. So he glances back and the man's still staring at him, looking half confused and half like he thinks he's found the lost city of Atlantis.

He'll later be told that this man's name is Axel, that he is in half of Roxas' older brother's classes at the community college, and that the two are working on a project together. But by that time Roxas has deluded himself into believing that nothing had happened and he chases his brother out of his bedroom so he can play his video games in peace.

* * *

The second time Roxas meets him, Axel is sitting at the family computer with several open books, the internet open with at least a dozen tabs, an almost-empty Word document, a growling stomach, and Roxas' brother nowhere in sight. The redhead is cursing steadily under his breath as he types with surprising speed and doesn't seem to notice the new arrival. Roxas rolls his eyes and walks into the kitchen, pulls two boxes of stuffed shells out of the freezer and sticks them in the microwave. Twenty minutes later, he walks back into the living room with a single plate and a can of soda, glances at the monitor as he sets them down on the desk—the man's a page and a half into whatever he's writing—and raises his eyebrows as Axel visibly startles, sees the food, and stares blankly at Roxas as if he has no idea what could possibly be going on.

"I could hear your stomach growling," he says softly, and returns to his own meal with no further explanation. He can feel the bewildered gaze on his back for a moment, and then the soft clink of silverware hitting the plate, and allows himself a secret smile.

Roxas is quietly washing the dishes when Axel walks in with the empty plate a half an hour later. He can feel the man's presence behind him though there's been no sound to herald his arrival, and doesn't turn around when he tells the man to just put the plate on the counter.

"Thanks," Axel mutters, the sound of his voice completely failing to evoke any sort of reaction from Roxas. The thing that makes his heart jump and his insides twist is the feel of the man's fingers touching his waist, hot even through Roxas' two layers of clothing, gentle and undemanding like the man doesn't even realize he's doing it. Roxas notices for the first time just how tall Axel is, towering over him like an oddly benevolent giant, and his voice catches in his throat so that all he can do is nod in reply. Axel hovers for a moment more, making Roxas wonder if he has anything else to say, and then he disappears like a shadow. Roxas waits to breathe again until he hears the steady clacking of the keys, and when he does a shiver runs through his body from his shoulders down and he shakes it off with a roll of his eyes.

Axel is still there the next morning, head pillowed on his arms and fast asleep. Roxas almost passes right by his still form, skateboard dangling from his fingers as he rushes out the door to catch his bus, but he does a double-take at the shock of bright color in his peripheral vision and stops short. He glances at his watch and debates waking the man up in case he has somewhere to be, and then there's a pounding knock at the front door and his best friend's voice coming through muffled, and Axel jumps up with a start. The two of them stare at each other for a breathless moment, each surprised, and then Roxas' lips twitch up into a smile against his will. Only one side of Axel's lips raise, but Roxas knows a smile when he sees one and his heart skips a beat before he pulls himself together and continues his mad dash for school.

He has trouble concentrating the entire day.

* * *

The third time they meet, Axel is just leaving his brother's bedroom with the first aid kit in his hand and an exhausted look in his face. Roxas looks him over, taking careful notice of the rip in the man's sleeve and the spatter of blood—obviously someone else's—on his cheek.

"What happened?" he asks quietly.

"Demyx got in a fight," Axel responds blankly, face and voice showing no emotion. "He's alright. I saved his ass before too much damage could be done to it." He pushes himself away from the door with a wince and thrusts the kit at Roxas, who just stares at him uncertainly. "I'm going to get back to my apartment. Don't let him do anything stupid in the morning."

"Why don't you just spend the night?" Roxas blurts, surprising himself, and Axel turns to look at him with raised eyebrows. He doesn't seem to know what to do with Roxas' kindness, and so the blond bites his lip and continues determinedly: "Come on. I'll help you get cleaned up."

"You're not going to let me go, are you." It's not a question, and Axel smirks at him when he scowls in annoyance and his grip on the box held awkwardly in his arms tightens.

"C'mon," Roxas snaps, shifting the box so he can reach out and snag the taller man's wrist. He's a bit surprised when Axel follows without complaint, and a lot surprised when the other sits on the toilet seat and pulls his shirt off without prompting. He takes in the man's frame with a glance—he's surprisingly thin, but all muscle—and turns to the cabinet for a washcloth when he feels his cheeks heat up. Axel is quiet and still as Roxas wipes off the blood from his arm and bandages the wound up; the cut is long and deep and Roxas thinks it might actually need real medical attention, but he doesn't say a word. The cut is the only thing that Roxas really needs to bother with, as most of Axel's other injuries are bruises, and when he unthinkingly moves the washcloth to Axel's face, the man grabs hold of his hand as if to pull it away, but doesn't let go. Their eyes catch.

"Do you ever get the feeling we should know each other?" Axel asks quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, and Roxas isn't sure what he should say, so he just stares wordlessly into the other's glowing eyes. "Like you're forgetting something important?"

"I, uh," Roxas begins uncertainly, and doesn't know what possesses him to do it, but he leans forward and catches Axel's lips with his own. He's almost in the older man's lap and almost ready to pull away and run when Axel seems to drag himself from the depths of surprise and kisses back, fingertips first ghosting Roxas's sides and then pushing up under his shirt and sliding to his back, hand flattening and pulling him forward until Roxas is straddling him and they're pressing into each other desperately. Some distant part of him is yelling at him to stop, screaming that Axel is practically a stranger and that he shouldn't be doing this. But it's drowned out by the insistence of the part of him that _knows_ Axel, that recognizes the texture of his hair and the taste of his mouth and the circles Axel traces on his back.

Roxas is still the first to pull away, trying to regain himself, but Axel looks hungry and amazing and heartbreakingly familiar, so he pulls the man to his feet and moves forward for another (shorter) kiss before pulling him to the bedroom where he pushes Axel onto his own bed and crawls on after, pulling off his own shirt and falling into bliss.

* * *

The fourth time they meet is really a continuation from the night before, where Roxas wakes from a dream of fire and fighting to the sight of Axel's face hovering over his own.

"Demyx is going to fucking kill me," is the first thing the man says, and then he's kissing Roxas before he can decipher the sentence in his sleep-clouded mind. Roxas sighs into it, content, and wraps himself around Axel like he's afraid the man will disappear; Axel slides his hands across Roxas' body and pulls away to trail kisses down his neck. "Something's missing," he murmurs against Roxas' skin, but doesn't stop until the door slams open.

"Axel, get the fuck off of him!" Demyx's usually cheerful voice sounds, and Roxas watches dazedly as the taller blond storms into the room. Roxas doesn't think he's ever seen his brother so angry before, eyes narrowed almost to the point of being closed—though with at least one eye it could have been due more to the swelling.

"Oh god, I'm going to die," Axel gasps, and Roxas can't help a startled laugh despite the fact that it isn't funny at all, not when he thinks Axel's actually right. But then Demyx is by the side of his bed, yelling and trying to pull Axel off, and Axel is clinging to the sheets desperately as if he's afraid of Demyx seeing his naked body, and Roxas stops laughing and grabs Demyx' arm.

"It's okay!" he insists, and though he is half-certain his voice hadn't been loud enough to hear over Demyx' screeching, his brother stops and stares at him, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. "I, ah, kind of jumped him, so get off his back."

"You _what_?" Demyx snarls.

"He was pretty insistent on having sex with me," Axel chimes in, still clutching to the sheets, and pulling them up higher when Demyx turns a glare back on him. "If it makes you feel any better, there wasn't any pen—"

"Oh god, Axel, shut up!" Demyx wails, flailing his hands at Axel to make him stop talking. "It doesn't make me feel any better, I'm going to go make some fucking pancakes, and if I hear anything going on in this room I'm going to goddamn kill you!" And he stomps back out, leaving the door wide open and muttering under his breath.

Roxas and Axel stare at each other for a few moments, bemused, until Axel leans in and murmurs, "So, how about a quickie?"

With a roll of his eyes, Roxas shoves the older man off the bed. "I'm going to take a shower," he says, pulling clothes out of his dresser without really looking at what he's grabbing. "I suggest you take one when I get out. You stink."

When he gets out of the shower a few minutes later, he tries not to notice Axel leaning against the wall outside of the bathroom with a towel over his still-bare shoulder. But Axel grabs him by a back pocket and pulls him in, and Roxas can't convince himself to struggle out of the light hold.

"You okay?" Axel asks quietly. When Roxas doesn't answer, he runs a hand up the boy's back and leans in closer, a serious look on his face. "Are you going to keep trying to ignore me, then? I'll tell you now, that's not going to work."

"…I just need to think about some things," Roxas responds softly, looking up at the redhead with a sigh. "I'm not entirely sure what to think about this."

"Fair enough," Axel mutters, and presses a kiss to Roxas' temple with a smile. "I'll just have to keep you interested, then, because I don't think I'm letting you go." He disappears into the still-steaming bathroom before Roxas can figure out what that means, but when he does he smiles and walks off to help Demyx with breakfast.

* * *

The fifth time they meet, Roxas nearly runs over Axel with his skateboard while careening around a corner of an alleyway to get to the Sandlot. He throws a hasty apology over his shoulder as he continues on, and then pushes the man out of his mind as he plows straight into a gang surrounding three of his best friends. Pence is motionless on the ground with Olette kneeling worriedly next to him, and Namine is hovering over the both of them in a fighting stance as if she would really do any good. The two girls look very relieved to see him.

"Don't you guys have anything better to do than pick fights?" Roxas snarls, hands slicing through the air angrily as he steps forward to defend his friends.

"No, not really," a tall woman chuckles, stepping forward and pushing her antenna-like bangs out of her face. They fall back down immediately as she leans over to look Roxas in the eyes, leering. Roxas tenses himself for a fight, but doesn't expect the woman's speed—there's a foot in his stomach almost before he realizes what's happening, and Namine's in front of him with her arms stretched out, a weak gesture.

"Stop!" she yelps, usually gentle voice sounding alien to Roxas' ears. "Leave us alone!" The woman is unimpressed, sneers and bats Namine out of the way like a rag doll, and Roxas forces himself back to his feet with one hand pressed against his stomach. He dodges the first blow, blocks the second, and the third catches him in the sternum, knocking the breath out of him, and he knows he won't be able to stop the next one—but the slap of flesh against flesh isn't the sound of him getting hit, and he looks up with still-watery eyes to a close-up of Axel's ass.

"You alright, Roxas?" the man's voice drifts down to him, concern coloring every syllable.

"I'm fine," Roxas replies, straightening up and stepping forward until he's next to Axel and glaring frostily at the woman. Axel places his free hand on Roxas' back and traces the familiar-but-foreign circles into his shirt. "Just had to catch my breath."

"Well, isn't this a lovely sight?" the woman sneers, twisting her hand out of Axel's grip. "Finally moved on, have you?"

"Stuff it, Larxene," Axel snarls, tracing the circles faster in his annoyance. "I got over you the day I found you with Marluxia, and you know it."

"Is that so? Well, that would explain why you skipped town, wouldn't it?" Her knowing smirk gets on Roxas nerves and he has to restrain himself from attacking her, from getting her to shut up and leave Axel alone. "Why you left Demyx and Zexion to fare for themselves, turning your back on your _family_, the only people who ever thought you were worth anythi—"

"SHUT UP!" Axel yells, reaching forward and grabbing a hold of Larxene, and Roxas jumps away from him with wide eyes. "You turned on us first, you and Marluxia planning your idiotic takeover scheme! I did what I had to do, Larxene, and I came back to find the Organization in shambles, split into pettily arguing shards with Demyx and Zexion and Lexaeus trying to avoid everything."

"So you were going to come crawling back, were you?" Larxene cackles, smirk only widening farther. "You think they'd have you?"

"I came back to make sure Demyx was okay," Axel growls, and Roxas realizes how dangerous Axel is, can feel the man's anger and hatred burning from him like fire and for a moment he's almost afraid. Except below that danger, Axel is undeniably Axel and Roxas knows somehow that he has nothing to fear. "To make sure he wasn't dead, to make sure he was taking care of himself and his family—which he is; he's washed his hands of you and I've done the same." He pushes Larxene back, almost making her trip over her own feet and fall to the ground. "Don't touch Roxas or his friends again. I won't be letting you go next time."

"You've gone soft, Axel," Larxene spits out, once again pushing her antennae out of her eyes. "You never were cut out for the Organization. I don't know what I ever saw in you, but I'm sure as hell glad I got rid of you when I did." She spins on her heel and gestures to the gang members scattered around the Sandlot: they all throw nasty looks at Axel and Roxas and strut off after her.

"Fucking bitch," Axel grumbles under his breath, and turns to Roxas with soft eyes. "You sure you—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Roxas interrupts, growling and not really understanding why he's angry. "It never occurred to you to say something?"

"No." Axel rolls his eyes expressively, "In all the time of us not actually having a relationship and the three times we've had any sort of interaction at all, it has not occurred to me to tell you about anything." He leans forward with a smirk, reaching out to run his fingertips down Roxas' forearm. "But if you're done thinking, if you know you're not gonna screw me around, I could tell you."

"Yeah," Roxas says, soft and simple, and he half expects Axel to pretend to be oblivious, for the older man to act affronted and hurt and he's ready for an argument, prepared for his own pigheadedness that would keep him from telling Axel what he meant, but that isn't what happens.

Instead it's an echoed "Yeah?" from Axel, shockingly and amazingly soft, and the redhead pulling him in for a long kiss that makes Roxas melt and cling to him as if Axel's the only thing keeping him from floating away into the sky. Which is metaphorically accurate, he thinks dazedly to himself, that it's a perfect concept to describe how he's feeling though he still isn't entirely sure what all this is about, can't figure out why he feels this way about someone he hardly knows. But it's perfect, so perfect, and nothing matters but this exquisite feeling and the promise he can feel in Axel's touches.

* * *

The sixth time they meet isn't really a meeting, but it feels like one due to Axel's uncharacteristic uncertainty and Roxas' inability to look him in the eyes. There's a tension between them that shouldn't be there, but they both get these _feelings_ sometimes, knowledge of something dark and bittersweet that has nothing to do with their lives but feels like the truth, and most of their interactions of late have not been pretty.

"So I guess this is goodbye?" Roxas asks, eyes on the empty train track below them, the one that leads to nowhere and holds nothing but ghosts.

"Well, yeah," Axel responds quietly, and Roxas doesn't need to look to see him—hands in pockets, eyes trained unblinkingly on Roxas' back. "It'll be hard to keep in touch and all, but maybe some day we'll find each other again. You know. I think I just need some time to myself." He's rubbing the back of his head by now, looking off into the distance where the sun is setting and there's no Roxas to make things difficult.

"Maybe," Roxas agrees simply, and there's a sigh from behind him. He knows Axel was hoping for something else, Roxas to ask or try to order him to stay, something that would give him an excuse not to leave. And maybe if Roxas was a stronger person, that's what would have happened. But the biggest problem is that Roxas understands, knows exactly what Axel means and why he's saying it, and he just can't bring himself to force the older man to hang around and feel betrayed without either of them knowing why. So he just sighs heavily and clings to the wooden fence before him, closing his eyes against the world.

Axel steps up behind him and stands there tracing the smallest circles at the base of Roxas' spine until he gives in and turns around, reaching up blindly to pull Axel into a deep, sad kiss. They hold onto each other for a few extra moments until Axel slowly disentangles himself and turns around, lifting his too-small bag and making his way down Sunset Hill.

Roxas watches him leave, feeling oddly as if he deserved to be left behind.

* * *

The seventh time they meet happens years later, after Roxas has tried and failed and forced himself to get over it, forget that Axel had ever been. He's still living at home with his brother and on the brink of finishing his first two years of college, on the brink of having to move on to better things. But right now he's on the phone with Namine, making plans for Friday night that don't include studying for the test they both have on Monday morning. They've already gotten the night planned out—where they're going to go, who's going to pick up who, where they'll end up—when there's a knock at the door and Roxas has to stop in the middle of his search for his favorite pair of pants to open it. He's already got the shirt on, a black and white vest with just about the world's largest zipper-pull and nothing else, but he's still in his biggest pair of sweatpants. This doesn't bother him because he's pretty sure who it is; Demyx has a habit of forgetting his keys.

But the person on the other side isn't his older brother. He's got four piercings in his left ear and a pair of thin wire-frame glasses, but everything else is familiar—the sunset-red hair, the glowing green eyes, even the shirt, faded now, but still proudly asking if he's got it memorized. For a long, long moment they stare at each other, taking the changes in—Roxas knows he's grown a few inches, not many but enough to make Axel do a double take—and then Namine's confused voice sounds in his ear and he snaps to with a start and an apology, a soft murmur that something has suddenly come up and he swears he'll make it up to her.

"I'm back," Axel says needlessly, stating the obvious with a small smirk and a tenseness in his shoulders that tells Roxas he's waiting for a fight. And there would be one, because Roxas is still a stubborn little shit and Axel is still a presumptuous bastard, but Roxas i _knows_ /i now, has figured out what has been bothering them the entire time they've known each other. And if it had been a year earlier, well, Roxas would have been bitterly angry, hurt and confused and screaming at the top of his lungs because Axel had tried to kill him once, back in the life that has nothing to do with theirs, and he hadn't known then why it had come down to such desperate measures. But everything fits together at this moment, all the puzzle pieces are where they belong and where they'll remain, glued together to form a beautiful picture to proudly hang on the wall (or store in the attic to be shown off years later, after it's gathered dust and been cleaned and the memories can bring gentle smiles and laughter to their faces), and Roxas knows everything there is, was, and had once been of the two of them.

And knowing all this, he does the only thing he can because he simply isn't good with words—he tugs Axel into his house, brings him in for a kiss, and stumbles backwards into the couch, into the walls, into his bed where they tumble down in a tangle of limbs with Roxas' shirt left in the hallway and Axel's glasses tossed almost carelessly away, and they pull slightly away from each other to stare and let their breaths mingle, and then Roxas smiles something sad and happy and sweeter than he's ever known he could and says, too simply: "Welcome home."

* * *

_A/N: I know I really should have been working on one of my bazillion other stories but the thing is guys…a friend of mine bought me a shirt with Axel on it for my birthday and I started writing this story in celebration. And then I figured, since it was cooperating, I should probably finish it. And then it stopped cooperating for a while, and then it started again, only now I'm afraid the ending is written in almost an entirely different style than the beginning was (serious, the puzzle thing, wtf) and my buddy-who-bought-me-a-shirt isn't online to flail at so um. I'm sorry? And this is admittedly not one of my best works—there are parts that I'm horribly disappointed with and could have done a billion times better, and the thing with Larxene never really has any sort of closure, but I kind of wanted to get this one out of the way so I can work on something else—something better and more thought out and engaging than this piece of crap was. And also, the ending is just about the most horrible thing ever. Seriously, "Welcome home"? I fail. So yeah. Sorry if anyone was disappointed. Uh. Review anyway? XD_


End file.
